1. Human Behaviour in Fire Workshops

The EPSRC sponsored Human
Behaviour in Fire Network (HUBFIN) is
organising a major workshop to address a very specific question. The question
is “Is Fire Safety being compromised by lack of knowledge of Human Behaviour in
Fire".

This half day Workshop will be held
on 19th August at the University of Greenwich the day before the
start of the International Conference on Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics (PED
2003) hosted and organised by Prof E Galea at the University of Greenwich.

The workshop will feature short
presentations from of eminent speakers drawn from different sectors but with
specific interests in Fire Safety Engineering. An opportunity will also be
provided for delegates to participate in the discussion. A draft
programme will shortly be made available.

This is an important workshop
addressing a very pertinent question. It is a low cost participative event
the outcomes of which will have considerable impacts. If this workshop and
subject matter is of interest to you and you have views or questions you want to
share take this opportunity. The number of participants will unfortunately
be limited.

2. Background

The development of human behaviour in
fire into an area of scholarly study has been rapid with research in the field
driven by performance based fire safety design and the establishment of Fire
Safety Engineering as a Profession. However, at present the field of fire
safety engineering research is particularly fragmentary. Public safety concerns
are assuming increasing importance in an environment of deregulation and
increasing completion pressure. It is difficult to mount co-ordinated
programmes of research across a multi disciplinary field that spans structural
fire engineering, materials performance through to human behaviour in fire. The
disaggregated nature of human behaviour in fire research means that much benefit
can accrue from establishing greater coherence and visibility in both research
objectives and research training. Against this backcloth the Human Behaviour in
Fire Network (HUBFIN) which is supported by the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) was established.

The broad objectives of HUBFIN will
be realised in three ways

(i) Networking

· Providing a forum for
academics and research users to reflect on national and international
developments and to formulate research questions

· Brainstorming and
developing new fields or study

· Facilitating
cross-fertilization of ideas and collaboration by networking

(ii) Dissemination

· Improving dissemination
routes for the output from university research to the user community, i.e.
industry, government, BSI, ISO and research funding bodies

(iii) Developing
the Research Community

· Training new
researchers in proposing and managing high quality research

· Organising appropriate
staff development activities

· Sharing current
research infrastructure activities between universities